Apple doubles down on AI
Apple has revamped its AI strategy with heavier investment in on‑device acceleration and rare retention RSU bonuses for key hardware and silicon engineers—moves tied to WWDC’s AI focus in June. Reports say retention grants have reached roughly Rs 3.76 crore (~$450,000) for top iPhone and AI designers as Apple fights OpenAI’s hiring push. (bloomberg.com) (punemirror.com)
Apple approved out‑of‑cycle restricted stock awards to many members of its iPhone Product Design team valued at roughly $200,000–$400,000 apiece, structured to vest over four years. (bloomberg.com) Bloomberg reports the retention push follows aggressive hiring by OpenAI, which has tapped “several dozen” former Apple engineers and design leaders as it builds a consumer hardware group that includes design work tied to Jony Ive. (bloomberg.com) Apple’s hardware roadmap has been retooled for on‑device ML performance: the company’s M5 family adds Neural Accelerators inside GPU cores, a faster Neural Engine and quoted unified memory bandwidth increases (153 GB/s in Apple’s release). (apple.com) Apple expanded its American Manufacturing Program this week, adding Bosch, Cirrus Logic, TDK and Qnity Electronics as partners and pledging roughly $400 million of investment through 2030 to grow U.S. component production. (apple.com) Senior engineering governance has shifted: Apple consolidated AI oversight under software chief Craig Federighi in a reorg that surfaced in January, a move that accompanied a decision to permit some third‑party models as part of its Siri and Apple Intelligence relaunch plans. (bloomberg.com) Apple has set WWDC 2026 for June 8–12 and will use the developer week to showcase Apple Intelligence advances, including developer access to on‑device foundation models and new AI‑focused tools. (apple.com)
